


Desert Solitaire

by GretaRama



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Amputee Earl, Angst and Feels, Gen, Kevin in the desert otherworld, Kinda?, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, References to past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:56:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4745438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretaRama/pseuds/GretaRama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AlephAndMutt and I swapped Night Vale prompts, and she gave me this delightful little confection:</p><p>  <i>Earl was lonely. He took care of Roger and occasionally had an after work drink with LaShawn as they hashed over menus, but he hadn't been in a relationship since... Well, that was hard to say since he had no real idea of the decades he spent at age nineteen. Lately he’d had insomnia, and spinning the dial to escape Cecil’s program, had heard a different bright, chipper voice gracing an unknown frequency. Realizing who this was, one thought wouldn't leave Earl: Wasn't that man Carlos left out in the desert otherworld lonely too?</i></p><p>Oh, girl. You get me. Here's amputee Earl living a rough life as a sous chef and trying his best to hold it together for Roger, until one night, a voice on the radio really starts to speak to him.</p><p>Now with a sequel! http://archiveofourown.org/works/4872910</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desert Solitaire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlephandMutt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlephandMutt/gifts).



“You need a vacation,” LaShawn said, shaking loose a cigarette and proffering the pack to Earl. “You can’t keep going like this.”

“Like what? And you know I don’t smoke.”

“Of course you don’t. Nobody smokes anymore.” LaShawn shook the pack again, and Earl sighed and accepted the cigarette, leaning across the table to light it on the match cupped in the head chef’s hand.

They smoked in companionable silence for a few minutes, poring over the white board where they planned their weekly menus. LaShawn made a modification to the Sunday Brunch offerings, the chemical tang of the erasable marker cutting through the smells of food and cigarettes. He regarded Earl as he capped the marker - not technically a pen, according to the ban on certain writing instruments, the Sheriff liked the smell too much - taking in the lavender smudges under his eyes, the way his white coat hung loosely on his rangy frame. He looked worn and thin, exhausted, and although he was keeping up with the constant demands of the kitchen, LaShawn knew he couldn’t continue if he didn’t get some rest, and soon.

“I’m serious, man. Take a week off.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with that much free time,” Earl said, shifting on his barstool and wincing a little. 

LaShawn noticed the wince, glanced down at Earl’s right leg, then deliberately met Earl’s eyes. “Really? You couldn’t use a break? You couldn’t take Roger camping or something?”

“He’s actually going camping this week,” Roger said. “Just not with me. I...don’t really do any camping anymore.”

“It doesn’t have to be camping, it could be anything. Maybe you could take care of _you_ for a change, you know? When’s the last time you went on a date?” 

Earl dragged on the cigarette and gave LaShawn a wry look. “For all I know, it was a million years ago. But I don’t know if it’s a good idea. Roger’s still young, I don’t want to introduce even more instability than there already is, you know?”

“So what, you’re just going to fly solo until Roger’s in college? That’s...what, eight more years?”

“Seven.”

“Not that you’re counting,” LaShawn laughed. “Come on, Roger’s a soldier. He could handle it.”

Earl smiled halfheartedly. “I doubt we’ll have to find out anytime soon.” He tapped on his right knee, which responded with a hollow plastic _pock._

“You kidding? That hair? Those freckles? If you were just a little bit less male, I’d be all over you, I don’t care how many legs you have.”

“Uh, thanks, that’s... either reassuring or disturbing, LaShawn.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is _flattering._ ”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you.”

“Fuck you too,” Earl said amicably, and LaShawn grinned, tossing back the rest of his drink. 

“You want another?” he asked, ambling behind the bar, and Earl examined his glass thoughtfully. “Your friend Cecil called again,” LaShawn said, not waiting for an answer. “You’re sure he’s still 86’d? That's free press, man. I want that.”

“Are you removing the sudden awareness of a hideous suppressed memory from the _prix fixe_ menu?” Earl asked.

LaShawn shook his head. “It’s essential to the total culinary experience. You know how I feel about that.”

“Then Cecil can’t come here,” Earl said. “I feel bad about it, but it’s better this way, trust me.”

“Okay,” LaShawn sighed regretfully. “He stays on the blacklist. It’s kind of hard, though. Him being your friend and all.” LaShawn held up the whiskey bottle and looked a question at Earl.

“Life is hard.” Earl pushed his glass across the bar, watching as LaShawn refilled it. He sipped the liquor gingerly, closing his eyes in pleasure as the whiskey glowed warmly in his mouth. “God, that’s really good,” he said quietly.

“Stone cold Earl Harlan,” LaShawn said, melodramatically, resuming his seat and refreshing his own drink. “You thought he was bad before he got dragged into the darkness by mute children, but you should see him now, he’s twice as mad, twice as bad, and twice as dangerous to know.”

Earl laughed despite himself. “Shut up,” he said, shoving LaShawn’s shoulder. 

“Turns away his high school sweetheart, doesn’t even bat an eye.”

“You are such a _dick._ And I never said he was my high school sweetheart. Why does everyone always think that?”

LaShawn sucked down a lungful of smoke from his cigarette and returned Earl’s shove. “You know that never gets any more convincing, right?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Just...shut up.”

“You let me know if you change your mind about that vacation. We’ve got the coverage for the next couple of weeks.”

“Thanks. I really will think about it.”

“I mean it. I don’t want you burning out on me, man.”

“ _Okay,_ ” Earl said again. “But I like to keep busy.”

“I hear you. I like being busy, too, but sometimes you need to take a step back from the stress, get some perspective,” LaShawn said, stubbing out his smoke in an ashtray. “You know what? I’ll finish up here and make sure everything gets closed down. Go home, get some rest.”

“But-”

“No, that’s an order. Go home. Drink warm orange milk. Take deep breaths, do yoga, do whatever you have to do, but for god’s sake, get some fucking sleep and eat something – and if you can’t do both, just eat something. You work in a goddamn restaurant. People don’t trust skinny chefs. In fact, wait just a second.” 

LaShawn disappeared into the kitchen. As soon as the doors swung closed behind him, Earl stood up, with some difficulty, and dug his fingers into the muscles of his right hip, blowing out a breath as the joint throbbed. “Fuck,” he said, steadying himself on the edge of the bar and trying to breathe through the pain. He heard LaShawn’s footsteps returning and leaned on his good leg, trying to compose himself.

LaShawn emerged from the kitchen with a stack of black Styrofoam containers. “For you and Roger. It’s a new thing I’ve been working on, Korean meets Haitian. Bibimbap with fried plantains and saffron rice with peas. Lychee Tres Leches for dessert. It’s way too tame for Tourniquet, but I was thinking maybe we could infuse air with the combined scents, trap the air inside little pillows, and sell them in a food truck or something. Anyway, here.”

“Thanks,” Earl said, accepting the boxes, balancing precariously on his left leg to keep the pressure off his right. “You sure you don’t want me to stay and help close up?”

LaShawn stepped forward and rested his hands on Earl’s shoulders. “Earl, I love you. You know this. So please don’t take this the wrong way, but get the fuck out of my restaurant.”

Earl smiled, shifting the two boxes to the crook of one arm so he could salute sharply. “Yes chef,” he said.

“And give that kid of yours a hug from me.”

“Will do.”

LaShawn walked briskly back through the door to the kitchen, and immediately began bellowing orders at the staff. Earl smiled to himself as he listened to the tirade and the corresponding clattering of pots and pans. But as he looked out at the dining room, surveying the couples lingering over coffee together, his smile faded. He decided to slip out the back door. 

* * *

“Thanks, Mr. Harlan,” the babysitter said, accepting the little stack of bills Earl pressed on her and stowing it in the back pocket of her jeans. “Roger’s asleep. He wanted to wait up for you, but he conked out midway through the show.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the radio, which was tuned to - what else? - NVCR. 

“He always does. I think he finds Cecil’s voice a little too soothing. You want me to walk you?” 

Hannah’s eyes instantly dropped to his leg, and she blushed. “No, I’ll be alright. Thanks.” 

He pretended not to notice. “Okay, but text me when you get back, so I know you made it home safely.”

“I will. Good night.”

Earl shut the door and stood leaning against it for a moment before turning and limping - there was no point in trying to hide it now, he was practically hopping on one leg - down the hall to check on Roger. He paused by the hall closet, where he kept his crutches. With every step, the socket of his prosthesis chafed against his skin, and his truncated limb felt hot and sore. His inclination was to dismiss it, to keep working through the pain, but he knew that even small changes could indicate something serious.

That was the essential problem with being an amputee, as far as Earl was concerned. Nothing was simple anymore. Even the smallest aches and pains had to be taken seriously, could leave him vulnerable to infection, or worse. Just maintaining the basic functionality most people took for granted required endless effort on his part. He sometimes thought he missed his old, carefree normality even more than he missed his leg. 

Roger was snuggled so far under his blankets all Earl could see was the top of his auburn head. He almost sat down on the bed, but had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to get up again if he did that. So he just leaned over, rested one hand on Roger’s small form, felt the slow rise and fall of his chest, and smoothed his hair, thick and glossy as seal fur.

It was still incredible to him that this little boy, this precocious, clever kid, could actually be his. And yet it was indisputably true; anyone could see that – one look at the incalculable number of freckles, the unruly red hair, and the shape and color of his eyes and it was clear, they could only be father and son. 

The physical similarity was remarkable, but Earl’s eyes were ineluctably drawn to the slight differences between them, always looking for some genetic clue that might identify Roger’s other parent, but so far, there was no definitive trait that might help solve that mystery. Roger’s nose promised to be a little longer, a little narrower than Earl’s, but it didn’t overtly resemble the nose of anyone Earl knew. Roger’s hands, childishly chubby, had neat square palms and stubby fingers; Earl’s were narrow with long, tapered fingers, but this minor divergence was equally unhelpful.

Roger stirred under his hand and Earl moved away from the sleeping child. He looked back toward his own bedroom as he closed the door to Roger’s room, figured it was probably pointless to even try sleeping, and headed for the kitchen instead.

He opened one of the containers LaShawn had given him, letting the savory, smoky scent of the meal inside waft to his nostrils. The food was beautifully arranged and undoubtedly transcendently delicious, but he just didn’t feel like eating. He seldom did anymore.

As he stowed the boxes in the fridge, his eyes flicked to the cabinet over the sink, where he kept the liquor. _For emergencies only_ , he reminded himself. Was this an emergency? He sighed, thinking of the drinks he’d already had with LaShawn, and decided it probably wasn’t. He was about to head back into the living room when he noticed the screen of his phone light up, indicating that he had a message.

He picked up the phone. He saw the text message from Hannah - _Home safe_ \- but the voicemail icon was also blinking. He tapped in his passcode and lifted the phone to his ear, leaning heavily on the counter and rubbing absently at his hip.

There was a beep, a staticky pause, then, “Hi Earl, it’s Cecil. Look, I know we talked about getting together for another cooking segment next week, but it turns out Friday is cancelled – we just got the notice from the City Council – so I was hoping we could reschedule. And...I don’t mean to be pushy, or put you in an awkward position, but now that Carlos is back...I’d really like to bring him to Tourniquet some time. I – oh – um, sorry, just a minute.” Earl could tell Cecil had covered the receiver with his hand, but he could still make out muffled voices on the recording. He heard “You’re home early,” and then a second voice, harder to hear, said something that sounded like “Couldn’t wait any longer,” then there was a muffled clunk, a gasp, and a long silence.

Cecil’s voice again, out of breath now: “Oh my god, oh my _god,_ you’re- ”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day, I just…mmmmmm…”

“Mmm…what are you…? Right _here?_ ” There was a sound like breaking glass and small objects clattering to the floor.

“Right here.”

“Ohhh- ”

“Cecil – the phone, sweetie – could you- ”

“Oh – _oh_...mmmph...” and then the click of the line disconnecting, the brief drone of a dial tone, and then the mechanized voice announced, “End of new messages.”

Earl hit the _End_ button, inhaled a single shaky breath, and turned back to the cabinet over the sink. _Now_ it was an emergency. 

He selected a bottle, and poured a healthy quantity of bourbon into a glass. He drank it all, poured another. His hand hovered over the rim of the glass for several seconds as the alcohol burned in his chest.

“Fuck it.” He drank the second glass, and then stood, leaning on the counter, eyes closed, for a full minute. “Roger, gotta think about Roger,” he reminded himself. What if Roger woke up sick, and had to go to the emergency room? Or what if he just wanted his dad, as sometimes happened, and came looking for him in the middle of the night?

He replaced the bottle, upended the glass in the sink, and limped resolutely back into the living room. He sank down onto the sofa with a sigh, levering his right leg out in front of him, just as he realized the radio was still on. It was a repeat of an episode from a few weeks back.

“At the end of the night, the car dropped Carlos and me back home and...I don't think we slept the whole night! Talking about our new old life together, all these memories and plans…”

Earl twisted the tuning knob violently, not caring if he listened to static all night, just as long as he didn’t have to hear another word about Carlos, fucking perfect Carlos and his stupid hair. The numbers station would be fine. More than fine. He spun the dial, trying to remember where WZZZ was. 

He caught a flicker of words somewhere in the dim westerly reaches of the dial, and paused, tuning the dial back and forth. A new voice, cheerful and vaguely familiar, emerged from the radio.

“Hello? Is anyone out there?”

“Well, if you _are_ out there, welcome to New Desert Bluffs Community Radio! This is Kevin – of course, who else would it be? I’m the only one here! – and you’re who you are, and if you’re listening to this, then in a way, we’re together, you and I! Just think about that. Here I am, in New Desert Bluffs, in my cozy little studio, and you’re wherever you are, and my voice is touching your ears. I don’t know about you, but I find that idea _very_ exciting!”

Earl glanced toward Roger’s room and adjusted the volume downward. 

“Now I’m sure there are naysayers out there – looking at you, Vanessa! – who would say, ‘Kevin, why bother? Why go on broadcasting when there’s no one else around, no town, just a bunch of people trapped on a never ending roller coaster and the occasional masked army marching through your remote and highly isolated desert settlement?’ And sure, most of New Desert Bluffs’ full-time residents spend 100% of their time on a rollercoaster and can’t spare even so much as a second for their community radio station. But here’s what I have to say to those meddlesome Debbie Downers: I am, first and foremost, a radio professional. Do I do this job for me? Of course not! I do it for you, my listeners! After all, if a radio host speaks in the desert and there’s nobody listening, does he even really exist? Who knows?”

“We haven’t received any applications for our many job openings here at the studio, I’m sorry to say. I even printed some out and took them down to the army encampment to see if anyone might be interested, but it looks like they’ve mobilized again. I tried flinging some applications at the roller coaster but I doubt anyone understood what I was trying to tell them. I’m not sure they’d even be eligible for employment, if I’m being honest. We’re absolutely an equal-opportunity employer here at New Desert Bluffs Radio, but I’m afraid the successful applicant would have to stop being on a roller coaster long enough to do a little work now and then. Ooh, I hope that isn't discriminatory. I'll get legal on that, as soon as we have a legal department.”

“So, I thought about it, and I’m wondering if it’s possible that _wishing_ your resume to me isn’t working? That’s hard to believe - when has ‘The Secret’ ever let anyone down before, after all - but physics does seem to work a little differently here. So, I built a mailbox in front of the station. I figured the phone works, e-mail works, even Wi-Fi works, so why not the mail?”

“We don’t really have streets or street numbers, but I decorated the mailbox to match my studio. There’s no mistaking whose mail belongs in there! So send your resumes, or letters, or postcards, or anything you want to Kevin, care of New Desert Bluffs Radio. Please send something. Anything. I’m very, very lonely. Did I just say that out loud?”

This was just what he needed. The voice was the opposite of Cecil’s in almost every respect, and he had to admit, it was nice to hear someone else who might actually be as lonely and isolated as he was, for once. Earl leaned back on the sofa cushions and closed his eyes. 

* * *

“Dad?” A small, warm hand squeezed his, and Earl jolted awake.

“Huh?”

“You didn’t take your leg off.”

“Mmmm.”

“You’re supposed to take it off every night. The doctor said.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I know. I know.” 

“I’m hungry.”

“Right.” Earl was sitting up before he was even properly awake, his eyelids still listing downward, his brain fuzzy. “Right,” he said again.

“Can we have pancakes?”

“Sure,” Earl said. “Pancakes, sure.”

“Did you sleep in your clothes?” Roger asked.

“I did,” Earl said, rubbing his eyes and yawning hugely. “I was so tired I fell asleep in my clothes.”

“Can you _do_ that?”

Earl groaned as he sat up, his back protesting the ill treatment of hours on the sofa, his hip aching, the stump of his leg pulsing angrily. “You can, but it’s not a very good idea.”

“You’re supposed to wear pajamas,” Roger said, his little face stern.

“You’re right. You’d better keep me in line, or else we’ll be sleeping in our clothes and going to work in our pajamas and the whole social structure will collapse around us.”

“Is that bad?”

“It might be.”

“Oh.” Roger looked down at his pajamas apprehensively.

“The rules don’t apply on Saturday,” Earl said, ruffling Roger’s hair and pulling him into a hug. The little boy - actually not so little anymore, he thought with a pang - smelled sweetly of sleep, and Earl buried his face in his pillow-mussed hair. 

Roger squirmed in his embrace. “Daaa-aad.”

“Sorry,” Earl said, releasing him. “That was from LaShawn. He told me to give it to you.”

“Oh.” Roger thought about that. “Okay,” he said, and gave his father a perfunctory hug. “You can give him that one back.”

“Good man. Let’s get some coffee started and see about those pancakes.” Roger ran into the kitchen, and Earl pushed himself to his feet with difficulty, biting back a groan of pain. The radio was now broadcasting ocean sounds. He switched it off and staggered into the kitchen.

He started water boiling for the French press and rummaged around in the cabinets, lining up a bag of Ralph’s Highest Quality Organic* Wheatlike Flour, a couple of goat’s eggs, butter, sugar, and a small package of nutmegs.

“Gross, no nutmegs,” Roger protested.

“They’re _amazing_ in pancakes,” Earl said. “You won’t even know they’re there, you’ll only know you’re eating the best pancakes ever.”

“I’ll know.” Roger crossed his arms over his chest, looking the perfect image of Earl when he was in a stubborn mood.

Earl shrugged and returned the nutmegs to the pantry, whisking the remaining ingredients together. “One day, you’ll look back on decisions like these, and wonder what you were thinking,” he said.

“You said kids have more taste buds than grown-ups,” Roger pointed out. “So maybe you’re the one who likes gross stuff and I’m right about everything.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” Earl said, laughing. The butter sizzled in the skillet, the smell of coffee filled the kitchen, and Earl’s right hip and leg - what was left of it - howled in pain. 

Everything else felt better, though.

* * *

He had to spend the rest of the day legless.

As soon as breakfast was over, he started Roger on his chores and headed for his bedroom. He stripped off his pants and unfastened the harness that held the prosthesis in place on his upper thigh. The relief was tremendous; his abused and stifled skin felt soothed as soon as it came into contact with fresh air. He shrugged out of his t-shirt, gathered his crutches under his arms, and swung into the bathroom. 

The doctors had done a fine job of turning the tattered red mass of blood and pain that had been the remains of his right leg into a smooth stump that ended at the middle of his thigh, but it was still impossible for him to look at it without thinking of the tearing hands and teeth of the strange mute children, of his own screams as the muscles and tendons ripped and the bones crunched. The way his hands shook as he tried to tighten the blood-slick belt around his thigh as a tourniquet, how the ragged bits of flesh and jagged ends of bone had dragged behind him as he crawled away from that nightmare.

He turned on the shower and waited for the hot water to kick in, wondering why it should be that this one memory, which he sincerely hoped was the worst would ever have, was left so beautifully intact, while so many others were gone, or corrupted. Surely he should have pleasant memories of Roger’s early childhood, for example. Or of his own childhood. Or of anything at all that had happened between age 19 and now. He looked in the mirror, wondering, not for the first time, exactly how many years that might have been. His red hair was as vivid as ever, but his fair, freckled skin was virtually defenseless against the desert sun, and the lines radiating out from the corners of his eyes and across his forehead suggested that at least twenty years were unaccounted for. 

_Were any of them good?_ he wondered.

He sighed and maneuvered himself onto the shower bench, cleaned the healed mass of scar tissue where his femur came to an abrupt, unsettling halt, washed his hair, and let the hot water pound into his shoulders for a while. The stump looked red and chafed, but there was no numbness or sign of infection. If he was going to keep it that way, he’d have to leave off the prosthetic until he had to go to work.

He dressed quickly, pinning up the empty leg of his pants, and crutched back into the living room, where he found Roger with his nose pressed against the front bay window.

“What do you feel like doing today?” he asked. 

“Janice and Mr. Steve are picking me up at ten, remember?”

“Oh, right. I forgot.” 

“Can you come too, Dad? Please?”

“No, not this time, kiddo,” he said. “I’ve got to lay off my leg as much as possible. You have fun, and tell me all about it when you get back, okay?”

“But Mr. Steve says you’re the _best_ at camping.” Earl almost flinched at the secondhand compliment. Sometimes Earl wondered if he was doomed to be ripped apart by children for the rest of his life. 

“That was before,” he said, keeping his voice light, but only with an effort. “You’re going to have to be the Harlan family’s official representative in the wilderness from now on, think you can manage that?”

“I’ll try,” Roger said seriously. “Are you going to miss me?”

“I sure am,” Earl said.

“I’ll miss you, too.” Roger looked a little upset, like it had only just now dawned on him that he was leaving for more than a few hours. “Is a week very long?”

“Nah,” Earl said. “It’ll fly by, and you’ll be having way too much fun to miss me, I promise.” 

Steve Carlsberg’s tan Corolla pulled up in the front of the house at ten, and before long, Roger was on his way, giggling happily in the backseat with Janice. Earl felt a sharp contraction in his heart as the car disappeared down the street, but he knew Roger needed his independence. It would be inexcusably selfish to keep him at home, away from his friends, just because his dad was lonely. _And besides,_ he thought, _by now, I should be used to the idea that anything I love, anything I depend on, can be taken away at any time._

* * * 

The following morning, Earl donned his prosthetic leg, got dressed, and headed out to the Green Market. This trip was ordinarily one of his favorite activities of the week; he loved watching menus come together as he gathered all the ingredients, loved the little surprises he sometimes discovered as local farmers revealed new produce items. But on this occasion, he was too uncomfortable and distracted to really enjoy it. His hip had begun to ache miserably almost as soon as he'd left his car, and by the time he’d ordered everything on his list, he could tell he wasn’t going to make it much further. He was beginning to suspect his hasty evaluation the previous day had been overly optimistic, that perhaps there really was something wrong. He had parked in the handicapped space, but even that short distance seemed to yawn endlessly in front of him, as impossible to cross as the sand wastes. He wasn't even carrying all that much; everything for the restaurant would be delivered later in the day; he'd only picked up a few items for some experimentation at home. He hobbled to the concrete benches that ran alongside the parking lot and sat down.

As he set down his grocery bags and eased his weight off his right side, he spotted Cecil and Carlos among the crowds of Sunday shoppers, making their way between the tents and stalls, hand in hand. Earl felt a twinge somewhere deep inside, as he always did at the sight of Cecil. 

It wasn’t exactly jealousy; he didn’t begrudge the two men their happiness - whatever he and Cecil might have had, Cecil had obviously moved on. So had Earl, if Roger’s existence was any indication. Relationships changed. Time was weird. Memories faded, or disappeared altogether. He knew all of this – so why did he feel this awful, unfulfillable _longing_ whenever he saw Cecil? Earl made himself look away...and then looked back a few seconds later. 

They had stopped to try a sample of local honey from a vendor, talking and laughing as they each accepted a plastic sampling spoon. Carlos seemed a little discomfited when the vendor subsequently administered the necessary antivenins to Cecil with a hypodermic needle, but he held out his arm willingly enough after the vendor pointed to the endotracheal intubation tent, where the needlephobic received treatment for honey poisoning. 

Earl contemplated staying where he was, letting them see him and come over to talk to him. They’d probably offer to help him with his groceries. He didn’t think he could stand it, and besides, he hadn’t returned Cecil’s call from the previous evening, and didn’t want to talk about impossible dinner reservations again. 

As he limped heavily back to his car, he felt something in his hip give out with a dull, internal pop, and he gasped with the shock of it. He barely made it to his car, and as it was he dropped the grocery bags next to the back door and sat down in the driver’s seat for several minutes, letting the hot burst of pain burn down to a steady throb.

He forced himself to stand long enough to get all the shopping bags into the back seat. He sank back into the driver’s seat with a sigh of relief, and started the car with a shaking hand. He’d had the car modified - the acceleration controls and the brakes were all on the steering column, so he could drive it even without the prosthesis attached, but he still had to wait several minutes before he felt he could concentrate sufficiently to drive.

He was going to have to go straight to the doctor.

* * * 

“You’ve lost seventeen pounds since your last check-in,” his doctor informed him, as soon as she breezed into the room. “You going to put them back, or do we have to fit you for a new leg?”

Earl blinked in surprise. “Seventeen?” he asked. “I didn’t think it was that much.”

“It’s obvious you’re not taking self-care particularly seriously,” the doctor said. “You’ve got some pretty serious muscle contracture and a ruptured bursa in your hip, and you’ve irritated your skin to the point where you’ll have to leave your prosthetic off for two or three days, at the very least.”

Earl blanched, thinking of three days alone, at home, with no work to break up the day. “How much work will I have to miss?” he asked.

“Anyone else, I’d be saying a week,” the doctor said. “But with you, I think it’s a matter of taking whatever I can get.”

“A week?” Earl said numbly.

“You also need to eat,” the doctor continued. “And I’d like to see you use a walker, not crutches. It makes better use of your upper body and lets you strengthen your remaining leg and improve your balance.”

“What’s wrong with crutches?” Earl asked. He didn’t know why he was so resistant to the walker, but the very idea filled him with a sense of dread.

The doctor’s expression softened. “I find that many patients in your situation initially prefer crutches because it allows them to think of their condition as temporary,” she said. “Crutches are a short-term fix for people who are going to get better. This,” she rested a hand on Earl’s stump, encased in its compression sock, “Isn’t getting better. Your leg is gone. The crutches might feel more comfortable psychologically, but the sooner you get over that and accept your situation, the better off you’ll be.”

Earl looked down at the place where his leg had been. “Okay,” he said, a little thickly. “I have one, for my physiotherapy, I just…I guess I hoped I wouldn’t need it, day-to-day.”

“You might not, if you’d take a little better care of yourself. I’ll have them add some padding to the socket so you can get back to work as soon as possible, but if you decide to start eating again, come back in here so we can make sure everything’s still fitting properly.”

“I…haven’t really been hungry. But I’ll make more of an effort,” he added, when the doctor peered at him over her clipboard.

“I hope you’re not just saying that to appease me. Because I’m not telling you to do it for my sake.” 

“I know. I really will eat more regularly. I work in a restaurant, how hard can it be.” He gave a halfhearted laugh.

She lifted an eyebrow at this, her expression communicating her entirely justified skepticism. “They’ll have your scripts for you at the counter, and I’ll have a nurse come in to help you get dressed in just a minute. Do you need any painkillers?” 

“No,” Earl said immediately. “No, I’m fine. I have plenty left over from last time.”

The doctor regarded him levelly. “Here’s a piece of unsolicited advice, you can take it or leave it: it’s really easy to start feeling left out and isolated as an amputee. It’s easy to slip into self-destructive behaviors. Don’t let that happen. Find someone to talk to, okay?”

The doctor swept out into the hall, leaving Earl alone in the exam room. Finding someone to talk to was no problem, he thought. He talked to people all the time. The hard part was finding someone who would _understand._

* * *

Kevin sounded dejected on the radio that night. “Hi. I’m Kevin, and this is…” The sound that followed might have been a sigh or a burst of static. Earl adjusted the antenna, but it didn’t help. He had moved the radio into the kitchen while he forced himself to eat one of the dinners LaShawn had given him. Realizing he’d been rearranging fried plantains on his plate for at least fifteen minutes, he finally gave up. He picked up the radio, placed it in the basket on the front of the walker, and levered himself out onto the patio. The reception improved substantially. He placed the radio on the patio table and turned back toward the kitchen.

“...don’t know, listeners. The giant masked army blew through town again today, but to be honest, they were really Carlos’s friends, not mine. Seeing them again - even that giant, adorable dog, and I’m _such_ a dog person, you’d think that would really lift my spirits! - just reminded me of how alone I am here. Is it possible to be alone even when you’re surrounded by other people?”

“Definitely,” Earl commiserated aloud as he carefully pulled himself over the ledge of the sliding door and back into the kitchen. He picked up a glass and a bottle from the cabinet over the sink and brought them outside as well. 

“Ordinarily I would take you now to a word from our sponsors, but - ooh, this is so embarrassing! - we still don’t have any. We still haven’t received any applications for any of these positions I advertised, and I haven’t received even a single letter.”

“Have you ever felt not quite whole? Like you’ve been torn up into little pieces and put back together so many times you’re not even really sure who you are anymore? Like all the things that once defined you now seem to belong to a distant past that has nothing to do with the you of today?” Another burst of static, or a sigh, or maybe a combination of both. “Listeners, I….” the voice faded away, there was more static, and then the ocean noises started up again. 

Earl tried to tune it back in, but all he could get was Cecil, or the endless series of numbers on WZZZ. 

His gaze fell on the bottle in front of him. “Looks like it’s just you and me,” he said.

* * * 

He had strange dreams. At times, he could walk around quite normally, as if both his legs were intact, but then he would remember, and his right leg would dissolve as if it were made of mist. He would topple over, helpless, usually in some public place, usually while trying to accomplish something important. 

He dreamed about the mute children, and Cecil, or at least someone who reminded him of Cecil. Someone with Cecil’s eyes, their face close to his, their breath mingling with his, their body pressed to his, and the only thing he really remembered was that he was waiting to see if the eyes would look at him with desire or with pity. And then he woke up alone in his sleep-tossed bed, head aching, eyes puffed shut and the rank smell of alcohol oozing from his pores.

He took a scalding hot shower while the coffee steeped to tarry blackness in the French press, downed a handful of children’s aspirin with his first cup, and began to feel a little more human. He pulled the sheets off the bed and put them in the washer, then hopped out to the patio, head pounding with each rubbery jolt of the walking frame. The radio was still there, but was lying on its back in the middle of the table. The glass stood next to it, and looked like it hadn’t been used. The bottle had rolled underneath the charcoal grill, and after a few futile attempts to lean over and pick it up, Earl decided he’d just have to wait and ask Roger to get it when he got back. 

He went back inside. In the living room, a box of Roger’s crayons had been knocked over and spilled across the coffee table. He collected them and returned them to their shelf. 

Once the coffee was gone, he switched to ice water and went through a series of stretching exercises that were supposed to help him maintain his mobility. They all felt like agony, which, he decided to believe, meant they were working.

Afterward, he went into the kitchen and prepared a fluffy golden omelette with chorizo, mushrooms and manchego, plated it with a handful of field greens and dressed the salad with a light tarragon vinaigrette. He stared at it for fifteen minutes before dumping it into the garbage disposal, stumping his way back down the hall and flopping back into bed. He stared at the ceiling, wondering how in the hell he was going to fill another three days - at a minimum - until he fell into a fitful doze.

During the week, he usually woke with Roger to fix him some breakfast and see him off to school, then went back to bed and slept until early afternoon. It wasn’t laziness; his work at the restaurant required him to keep a vampiric schedule, and by the time Roger’s bus left each morning, he’d usually only been home for four hours or so. 

So he wasn’t surprised to hear his alarm sound a short while after he’d nodded off. But he _was_ surprised by the voice he heard coming from the radio. 

“Cecil! Cecil, old friend! I’m here.” 

And then Cecil’s voice, “You sound different. When is this radio signal coming from? Uh, when are you in your life?”

“I am very old. It has been many years since I last spoke to you. It’s great to hear your voice again. It’s great to hear any voice again.”

“I’ll admit, this is a little exciting. How is the future?” Cecil asked.

“Desolate.” Kevin’s voice was sand blowing over bones, it was a dry husk carried over dead, stubbled fields.

“Okay, not what I expected, if I’m honest,” Came Cecil’s typically unfazed reply.

Earl sat up and leaned toward the radio. It was set, as usual, to NVCR, no mistake there. This Kevin sounded so different from the Kevin he had heard only last night, but as he listened, as the show continued (a rebroadcast from the night before), he began to see that this was the logical continuation of Kevin, the conclusion of the tragedy even now unfolding in the desert otherworld.

And he saw how easily this could be the conclusion of his own story, if he allowed such a thing to happen.

* * * 

That night, there was another surprise.

“Listeners - or possibly ‘listener,’ I really don’t know if there’s _more_ than one of you, but - and this is so exciting!- I now know that there _is_ at least one of you! There is one of you, and you are real, or at least real enough to send a real letter. A letter so real I am holding it my hand, and reading it with my eyes. Ordinarily these traits would not be enough to establish an object’s reality, but today, I think I’ll just go ahead and accept it at face value. A letter. From a listener. It’s written in crayon, but I’ve decided to find that charming.”

Earl stared at the radio in horror. He hadn’t, had he? He couldn’t have. Surely he hadn’t...but even as he tried to deny it, he caught flashes of memory from the night before, and _ohhhh god,_ he had, hadn’t he? He had written a letter to Kevin.

“So, let’s see what you have to say, listener.” There was a crinkling of paper, and Kevin cleared his throat. “ _Dear Kevin,_ It’s a very promising way to start. _Dear Kevin, last night on your broadcast you asked if it was possible to be surrounded by people and still feel alone. You asked if anyone else had ever felt like they had been torn apart and put back together too many times to know who they are anymore. I wanted you to know that you are not the only person who feels alone even when you’re with other people; that you’re not the only person who has a ‘you’ from a time before and the ‘you’ that is left, after whatever happened has happened._ ”

“For the sake of this listener’s anonymity, I think I’ll skip over the next section, which describes an, um, _experience_ the listener had. Hmm, let’s see, here we are: _and I can never tell anyone, because I’m supposed to transform that experience into character, but all I feel is diminished, and less, and not enough._ ’”

“ _When I heard your voice on the radio, I thought that if anyone would understand, it would be you. I think something happened to you, too, and that afterward you were supposed to be happy. But I think you need more than a smile to be happy, Kevin. If you understand what I’m saying, if you see any truth in this, I hope you’ll say so. Sincerely-_ and then he signs the letter with his name. This is…I don’t know what this is, listeners. I need to think about this.” Kevin was silent for a long time. 

Earl was so absorbed in what he was hearing he forgot himself completely and tried to stand up unaided. He collapsed, hard, against the kitchen counter, banging his elbow against the granite surface, and he cringed as the particular pain that accompanies insults to that joint twinged up his arm. 

“Ffff-fuck. _Stupid,_ ” he gritted, as he righted himself and pulled the walker closer so he could balance himself upright. He opened the freezer door and removed the pack of cigarettes he kept on the top rear shelf. He lit one and cracked the patio door, waiting for Kevin’s voice to return, fingers shaking.

“I think what I want to say to my new friend E.H. is, I wish we could talk. I wish you were here, or that I were wherever you are. I think we’d have a lot to say to one another, even if we didn’t say anything at all.”

And Earl knew what he had to do.  


* * *

It involved three phone calls. The first was easy; he called LaShawn and asked for the rest of the week off.

“Fuck you,” LaShawn said. “I thought I actually _ordered_ you to take the week off.”

The next was a little harder. He dialed Steve Carlsberg’s number. 

“Hello?”

“Steve? Hi, it Earl Harlan. How’s the camping trip going?” 

“Oh, just great. Janice and Roger have been spelunking and laser knife fighting and who knows what all!”

“Spelunking?”

“Sure, Janice can slither through the limestone caverns like an eel, you’d be amazed. It’s all upper body strength.”

“No, I wasn’t...I just meant that Roger has always been a little nervous about confined spaces.”

“Oh, that. He said he feels safe with Janice, so I guess he got over it.”

“That’s great,” Earl said. “But listen, I don't want to interrupt your trip, I’m just calling because I have a favor to ask. I’m going out of town for a couple of days, and it may be a little hard to get hold of me. I just wanted to let you know because if anything happens, I might not be around. But I’ll call or text every night that I’m gone to make sure everything’s okay.”

“Sure, no problem,” Steve said affably. “Going anywhere good?”

“I’m not sure,” Earl replied honestly.

“I know how that is,” Steve commiserated. “Well, have a safe trip, if you can. And you know...if anything happens, or if you’re delayed for some reason...we’ll take care of Roger.”

Earl blinked rapidly, surprised. “Thank you,” he said, and it didn’t seem like enough. “He’s lucky to have such good friends. But I’ll be back. I shouldn’t be gone long.”

The third call was the hardest, but it was also essential. He put it off as long as he possibly could, but finally, he poured himself a very small drink, sat down on the sofa in the living room, and made himself dial the number.

“Hello, Palmer-Scientist residence, Cecil speaking,” Cecil said cheerfully. 

“Cecil? It’s Earl. How are you doing?”

“Earl! I’m doing great! I’ve been hoping you’d call.”

“I know, and I’m sorry it took so long. I have a favor to ask.”

“Anything, Earl, I’d be happy to help.”

“I need to know how to enter the Dog Park.”

“Oh.” There was a long silence.

“Cecil?”

“I’m trying to remember whether or not that was supposed to be a secret,” Cecil said.

“She told you how to do it in the middle of a radio broadcast.”

“But the specifics were revealed to me in a dream,” Cecil said. “I don’t know, Earl. Why do you even want to go there?”

“The dream happened during the broadcast, too,” Earl pointed out, but he didn’t answer Cecil’s question.

“I don’t know, Earl. You know how the Faceless Old Woman is. I really don’t want to make her angry. Angri _er_.” 

“She can hear this conversation,” Earl said. “She secretly lives in my home, too.”

“That isn’t making me feel better,” Cecil said. “Maybe I should-”

“Wait, Cecil, just a minute. If she can hear us, let’s just ask. Faceless Old Woman,” he addressed the apparently empty room. “If you don’t want Cecil to tell me how to enter the Dog Park, please give one of us a sign. It can be anything.” 

“Anything _not_ involving insects and ears,” Cecil added quickly. “Jeez, Earl, you’ve got to be more careful, you don’t know how creative she is.”

“Okay, anything not involving insects or ears, please.” They waited.

Nothing happened.

“Everything okay over there?”

“Ye-es,” Cecil said slowly. “Nothing happening on your end?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t know, Earl. I’m not sure I feel good about this.”

Earl sighed. “If you tell me,” he said resignedly, “I will get you and Carlos a reservation at Tourniquet."

“For dinner?” 

“For dinner.”

“And not in the lobby?”

“At a table. Indoors. Whenever you want. There’s just one condition, Cecil. You absolutely, positively _cannot_ order from the _prix fixe_ menu, okay? _A la carte_ only.”

“But-”

“No, Cecil. Non-negotiable.”

A deep, put-upon sigh. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why?”

“Nope.”

Grudgingly, Cecil conceded. “All right. It’s a deal.”

“Good. So spill - how do I do it?”

“There’s a button on the gate,” Cecil said. “On the right-hand side. It says ‘Open Gate.’”

Earl laughed in surprise and disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“I know, I was surprised, too. It’s black, and it’s a little hard to see, but it’s there, right out in the open. I guess they’re really counting on us not thinking about, approaching, or looking at the Dog Park, you know?”

“So...what, you just push the button?”

“You just push the button. Then you just pick a direction and start walking. It didn’t take me very long to get there at all, but your mileage may vary.”

“Right. Right.” He wondered how long it would take. He had already decided not to use the prosthesis. It might make it possible for him to move a little faster at first, but it would ultimately be a liability, especially with his physical condition so compromised. The walker was probably his best bet, although the thought of traversing an expanse of desert on one leg and a walker sounded utterly miserable. 

“The sand, was it soft, like dunes, or packed, like the sand wastes?” he asked.

“Packed, mostly. Dunes in the distance. Why?”

“Just wondering. Logistics.” 

“Oh, right. Of course.”

Cecil cleared his throat. “I guess you’re not going to tell me why you want to go,” he said. “And that’s fine, but, if you don’t mind...could I ask a favor?”

“Sure, Cecil.”

“If you make it to the settlement, would you check in on Kevin? I- I think I’m worried about him, strange as that sounds.”

Earl smiled. “Sure. I can do that, no problem.”

“Thank you. And Earl?”

“Yeah?”

“Please be careful.”

* * * 

His camping and hiking supplies were all stowed neatly in boxes in the spare bedroom at the end of the hall. He hadn’t opened any of the boxes since they’d been packed, during his long convalescence in the hospital; he hadn’t even gone into the spare room. The door creaked as it swung open, and displaced dust drifted down from the top of door as he pushed it aside. 

He decided he wasn't quite up to it, not yet. He went back into the living room and wrote the letter, explaining what he was going to try to do. He made his laborious way down to the mailbox and dropped the envelope inside, lifting the little red flag. By the time he got back up to the top of his driveway, he saw that the flag was down. It was done; he was committed. He headed back inside and down the hall again, steeling himself for the ordeal to come.

"We'll just go one box at a time," he said to himself. "One box at a time."

And that was how he did it. He opened the first box, removed what he needed, then moved on to the next. Some boxes were easy, and others were not. Here was a pair of rolled sleeping bags, not too bad; there was his Order of the Arrow sash and Vigil honor pin, which brought about tremors in his hands, and had to be set aside.

He went through each box, assembling the items he thought he might need. He also modified the walker, adding panniers and building out the dinky wire mesh basket on the front so he could carry extra water. Then he brushed his teeth and to bed early, although he didn’t sleep well.

The following morning, he went about his usual routine, trying not to dwell on the worries that kept bubbling to the surface of his mind. What if the City Council had removed the shockingly obvious “Open Gate” button? What if the serendipitously short journey Cecil had taken was merely a fluke, and he ended up wandering the mysterious otherworld desert for the rest of his life? 

Several cups of coffee later, he felt somewhat better. After all, he had always been a good at negotiating the wilderness. He _had_ managed to drag himself back from the strange and terrible dimension where he’d been taken by the mute children, even horribly injured and with half his blood gone. Surely he could drag himself around the Dog Park, with only a few soft-tissue injuries and a walker?

Surely he could do that.

He still had no appetite, but he made himself eat a bowl of granola before he left, and he packed some jerky and trail mix, just in case. Then he drove downtown, parked in the long-term lot at the bus station, and walk-hopped the rest of the way to the Dog Park. He stopped in front of the gleaming obsidian gate, examining the surface to the right of the doors. And there it was, just as Cecil had said. 

“Open Gate,” Earl said. “I’ll be damned.” And with a laugh, because he hadn’t been quite sure he was going to do it until he did, he pressed the button.


End file.
